having been transcribed from an old MS. by Sertorius Quadrimanus. More ambitious than the former, to which however it is indebted for several lines, it professes in its exordium to be the work of Ovid, who speaks of himself as led to his subject by the scenes of his exile: but though the lines in which the profession is made are not without ability, those who should credit it would be compelled to suppose that Ovid's removal from Rome had made him forget the quantity of the first syllable of dirigo," as he ventures to address Glaucus 66 "Quare si veteris durant vestigia moris, Si precibus hominum flectuntur numina ponti, The date of Serenus Sammonicus is at any rate earlier than that of Nemesianus, though it is questioned whether he is to be identified with a person of that name, "cuius libri," says Spartianus, "plurimi ad doctrinam exstant," who was put to death by Caracalla, or with his son, the preceptor of the younger Gordian, and the valued friend of Alexander Severus. His work, however, De Medicina Praecepta, in 1115 hexameters, is not properly a didactic poem at all, but merely a medical treatise in metre. Those who are fond of classical parallels may compare it with Catius' lecture to Horace: but to others it will seem a product of the second childhood of literature, when subjects, which, since prose composition existed, have always been treated in prose, are set to tune again by the perverse ingenuity of grammarians. The only part which appears to have any poetical pretension is the opening. "Membrorum series certo deducta tenore Ut stet, nam similis medicinae defluit ordo, Phoebe, salutiferum, quod pangimus, adsere carmen, Tuque potens artis, reducem qui tradere vitam Nosti, seu caelo manis revocare sepultos, Qui colis Aegeas, qui Pergama, quique Epidaurum, Tarpeias arcis atque incluta templa petisti Now let us listen to a remedy for a stiff neck. "At si cervices durataque colla rigebunt, Aut caprae fimus et bulbi, aut cervina medulla : Debebis, qua gryllus erit pressante peremptus.” Still more barren and unpoetical is Prisciani Carmen de Ponderibus et Mensuris, a set of 208 hexameters, the authorship of which is involved in some doubt. The first nine lines will show that in spite of a preliminary flourish, it is little better than a memoria technica, a device for fixing facts about weights and measures in the memory. "Pondera Paéoniis veterum memorata libellis Nosse iuvat. Pondus rebus natura locavit Ordiar a minimis, post haec maiora sequentur ; Here at length we may stop. The didactic poetry with which we have been dealing, though far enough removed from the spirit of the Georgics, has at any rate preserved their form. Terentianus Maurus may have been as much of a didactic poet as Sammonicus or the supposed Priscian; but as he chose to exemplify in his work the various metres for which he laid down rules, he can hardly come under consideration in an essay which is intended to illustrate by comparison the didactic poetry of Virgil. Other works which the historians of Latin literature have classed among didactic poems seem to be excluded by different reasons. The Phaenomena of Avienus, like the fragments of Cicero and Germanicus, hardly calls for notice independently of Aratus' work. The poem on Aetna has didactic affinities, but its subject is not sufficiently general. The Periegeses of Avienus and Priscian fall rather under the category of descriptive poetry. Columella's Tenth Book has been mentioned in another place." 5 Note on G. 4. 148. ADDENDA, &c. P. 49, note on E. 4. 4. It is right to mention that the Third Sibylline Book, minus a few interpolations, is supposed by modern critics to have been written about 170 B.C., so that Virgil may have actually known it. I do not however find in it any such resemblance to the language of the Fourth Eclogue as to necessitate the supposition that the one must have been the model of the other. I wish to say that the Introduction to the Georgics had passed through the press before the publication of Mr. Munro's edition of Lucretius. It would be difficult otherwise to excuse the absence there of any allusion to that most important work. In the subsequent Commentary I have fortunately been able to introduce an occasional reference to it, though not so frequently as I might have done had I had the advantage of consulting it earlier. [On Georg. 4. 132 it should be added that Seneca Ben. 1. 7. 1 quotes this line with the reading animo: "qui dedit parva magnifice, qui regum aequavit opes animo.”— H. N.] INDEX. A. A teneris and in teneris, G. ii. 272 integro and similar phrases, E. iv. 5 Abdere domo, G. iii. 96 Abigei, G. iii. 408 Abiungere, 'to unyoke,' G. iii. 518 Ablative, material, E. iii. 39: G. i. 262; Ablative and dative, sometimes almost Abolere, shades of meaning of, G. iii. 560 cognate, E. vi. 63: G. ii. 39; Acheron, called palus, G. iv. 479 Acorns given to cattle in winter, E. x. Adeo = besides, G. i. 287: gives a rhe- with dum, G. iv. 84 -, descriptive, converted by Hesiod Adstare, of standing up, G. iii. 545 ii. 291 Aestas, of the warm half of the year, G. Aestiva, of summer pastures, G. iii. 472 Aetas, for annus, doubtful, G. iii. 190 G. ii. 364: of chasing, G. iii. 412 |